


The Raven

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Blood and Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Road Trips, Serious Injuries, Slavery, Slow Burn, jotuns are a different tribe not a different species
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-29 04:56:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17801432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: Thor, son of the disgraced Raven clan, saves the life of Loki, a Jotun thrall. Honor binds them together, but will it also tear them apart?“Who is your traveling companion?” Heimdall asked Thor, eyes flicking back and forth.“That's Loki. He's my—” Thor's tongue tripped.My friend. My lover.“I'm his thrall,” Loki said sharply.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacehussy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehussy/gifts).



> So this is based on this movie from 2011 called The Eagle, which stars Channing Tatum, and might be the gayest movie I've ever seen that didn't actually have a kiss in it. It BEGGED to be made into a thorki au, so here we are. Super big thanks to spacehussy who introduced me to it.
> 
> You absolutely do NOT need to know anything about the movie to read the fic. ❤️

Thor was ten the summer that his father marched off to battle.

Under the Raven standard, Odin gathered the finest warriors in the clan. He was their chief and the finest warrior of them all, the mighty spear Gungnir in his hand—the symbol of their people, passed down for generations. Thor had never seen a full muster before, and the sight awed him. So many men and women, their weapons sharp and glittering in the sun, the creak of their armor, their pennants flying. Hard edged laughter and excitement and worried eyes. Mothers crying.

Thor stood at his elder sister’s side to see them off, stomach in his throat, and tried to hold her hand. Hela shook him off with an admonishing _tcha_.

“We must be strong,” she hissed at him out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes never leaving their father. Odin stood at the head of the company, winged helm and armored shoulders making him appear even larger than he already was. He raised Gungnir and the assembled warriors fell silent and drew themselves up straight as one; swiftly, he brought the butt of the spear down to hammer against the ground, and every warrior clanged their weapons and shields together in response.

“Today we march!” Odin called out, his voice deep and yet ringing clear as a bell. “Today we show the barbarians of Jotunheim what the warriors of Asgard are made of!”

The warriors cheered and Odin’s man Heimdall handed him the reins of Sleipnir. Odin swung up into the saddle in one fluid motion and wheeled the horse around to approach Hela and Thor.

“Take care of our people in my stead,” Odin said to Hela, and she nodded grimly.

“And you,” Odin said to Thor, leaning down to him, his one eye searching, “take care of your sister.” He reached for Thor and pressed something small and hard into his hand. Then he was wheeling around again, and calling for the warriors to fall in, and Thor was watching over a thousand brave men and women march out into the unknown.

They never came back.

*

“Don’t be an idiot, Thor,” Hela said. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop, staring into the fire. She hadn’t stopped jiggling her leg since Thor came in.

“I’m not being an idiot,” Thor insisted. “It’s been ten years since Father disappeared. You’ve been more than a capable leader since then. They _have_ to let you sit at the Thing this year. There’s no reason not to.”

“There’s every reason,” Hela snapped. She finally turned to look at him, her eyes hard. “It takes more than time passing to undo the dishonor he brought upon our clan.”

Thor held his tongue, mostly because he knew she was right. Odin had not just failed to win the battle, he’d lost every single man and woman who’d gone with him, and Gungnir besides. That spear had always been more than just a spear. It _was_ Raven clan, the physical manifestation of their honor as warriors, and Odin hadn’t just lost it, he’d lost it in the most embarrassing way possible. It was all Hela had been able to do to keep their clan together at all after such ignominious defeat; the Bear clan had wanted to dissolve Raven entirely, killing the people who were left; Wolf had wanted to take them as thralls; Snake had offered to take them in but only if they gave up the name Raven and became Snakes instead. Hela had allowed none of it. They were still an independant clan, but only just.

Thor sighed. He peeked out the door of Hela’s private room to the longhouse beyond and found it blessedly empty. No one to eavesdrop.

“So you haven’t received the invitation to the Thing council,” Thor said, keeping his voice low. “But it’s not for another three months anyway. The Jotuns have been getting bolder with their border raids lately. There are reports right now of them taking some of our grazing land hostage near our border with Bear clan, but Bear has yet to act. Let me lead a sortie. We’re a green lot but I think we’re ready. Let me win us back some honor. They’ll have to let you come, then. Our clan needs a voice, sister.”

“Thor,” Hela said. She looked tired, more tired than any twenty-five-year-old should look. “You’re just going to get everyone killed. I know you think we’re fighters, but they haven’t let us see battle in a decade, and training under Father’s old one-handed armsmaster doesn’t count for much.”

Thor bristled. “Tyr was one of Odin’s mightiest—”

“He has _one hand_.”

“And I have two.”

Hela made a disparaging noise and Thor’s hand stole up to the carved raven that he wore on a leather thong around his neck. Remembered Odin pressing it into his palm the morning he’d ridden away. The way he’d looked at Thor.

“Raven clan wouldn’t exist anymore without you,” Thor said, “but it’s time for us to stop simply existing and to win back our place.”

Hela narrowed her eyes and started tapping her fingers on the table again. “This is technically not something we’re allowed to do. If you lead this sortie and lose, we may lose our status permanently.”

“I won’t lose,” Thor said.

Hela raised her eyebrow at him.

“I won’t lose,” he said again.

*

Thor led the untested warriors of Raven clan into glorious battle with the barbarians of Jotunheim. They caught the Jotuns unaware and fell upon them with war cries tearing from their throats. Thor had never felt his blood sing the way it did that day. His enemies fell before him in arcs of ruby red blood and he _was_ war, he was the storm, he was the master of death. He roared his exultation to the heavens and the heavens roared back.

Was this how his father had felt? Was this why Odin had been so eager to ride? Was this how he had finally fallen, in a blaze of glory and honor? It must be so. Thor’s raven necklace glistened, wet and red, and it agreed with him.

As the Ravens of Asgard cut through the Jotun force mercilessly, the barbarians began to break, to flee the field and its stink of blood and shit and the broken cries of the dying. A ragged cheer went up from Thor’s men. Thor joined in, raising his sword, his throat raw from bellowing. He turned around to survey the field, see what they had wrought, when he realized the cheers were dying in his people’s throats and then they began to turn and run themselves.

“Wha—” Thor said, wiping the sweat and grime from his eyes. He turned back around.

A monstrous bilgesnipe was charging from the forest at the edge of the field. The Jotun’s shaman was perched precariously atop its back, his staff raised high, eyes wild, face twisted in a crazed snarl. The blue paint his people covered themselves in had gone thin with blood and it ran down his face into his beard.

“DEATH!” the shaman screamed. “DEATH TO ASGARDIANS!”

Thor’s heart stopped for an instant while time seemed to stretch out like honey. The bilgesnipe was as big as a longhouse. It would trample them all, or gore them, or snap them up with its razor sharp teeth. His people were right to run. What chance did they stand against it?

Thor couldn’t let them lose though. He couldn’t. The clan’s honor depended on it. _His_ honor depended on it. If he ran now, he may as well just let the bilgesnipe run him through with its horns.

He dropped the sword he was holding. It would be useless against such a creature.

The bilgesnipe was bearing down upon him.

Thor cast around him for something, anything he could use.

The ground shook with the bilgesnipe’s thundering weight.

One of the piles of bodies around him moved. A Jotun warrior, not dead yet but certainly on his way there. A giant spear clutched in his hand, the haft as thick around as Thor’s wrist. Thor yanked it from the man’s slackening grip; the man’s hand closed around his ankle instead and Thor kicked him in the head, felt bone crunch under his boot.

The bilgesnipe was nearly upon him, a great braying noise issuing from its slavering jaws, spittle flying—Thor’s world narrowed to the scream of the shaman, the shaking ground, the spear in his hand, the carved raven in the other—and Thor drew back his arm, and the beast was upon him, and he drove the spear straight into its open mouth and—

Blackness.

*

Thor was lost to fevered darkness for he knew not how long. His dreams were unsettling, full of fire, and every time he found himself dragged back to the land of the living he was sure that the fire existed in truth, for he felt it burning his leg, burning and burning and burning until he passed out again.

“Shh,” a gentle voice said. “It’s alright. You’re safe now.”

When Thor finally came back to himself, the owner of the voice was pressing a cool cloth to his head. He tried to sit up, and fell back with a whine. His leg.

“Mother,” he gasped.

“I’m here,” Frigga said.

“Did I win?”

“Yes, dearheart, you won.”

Thor closed his eyes and sagged in relief. “What happened?”

Frigga took the cloth from his forehead and used it to rub at his cheeks. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he had no doubt he was filthy.

“You routed the barbarians and then took down a bilgesnipe singlehandedly,” Frigga said. “You’ve been the talk of the clans for a week.”

“Hela. Did she—will they let her—”

“Shhhh,” Frigga said again. “The clan leaders are divided. Bear wants you publicly flogged and Raven disbanded, since the lands you won back were under their protection. Wolf and Snake are more impressed and willing to see reason.”

“Shit,” Thor groaned. “It was for nothing, then.”

“It wasn’t for nothing. You did a good thing. You reclaimed grazing land, without which we might have starved this winter. You raised our standing with Wolf and Snake. You gave our people confidence.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Thor said. Would anything he did ever be enough? “I’ll just do it again. The men will follow me again, I’m sure of it. We can go farther into Jotun territory this time—”

“Oh, Thor,” Frigga said. Her eyes looked sad. “My sweet boy. I don’t know if you’ll be able to fight again.”

“What are you talking about?”

Silently, Frigga reached down and moved the blankets covering Thor’s legs aside. His right leg was whole and unharmed, but his left...Thor swallowed thickly, suddenly nauseous. His left shin was a mass of seeping blood-tinged pus, swollen to twice its normal size, stitched back together with catgut into a mocking parody of a leg.

“Gods above and below,” he swore.

“Now that you’re awake we can bathe and dress it properly,” Frigga said. “But I fear this may be a lifelong injury.”

“Leave me,” Thor said dully. Frigga rose silently and Thor turned his face away. He fingered the raven around his neck for strength, but this time all he could feel was it mocking him.

*

It turned out that after his loss of a victory, Thor’s people had carried his insensate body to Folkvangr. It was the closest that Asgard had to a capital. It was where the clans met and it had multi-level structures and law houses and an arena and, more importantly, healers. And most importantly, Thor’s mother, who was chief among them. She had married into Raven clan from Snake clan, and her healing skills were so great that even after Odin’s defeat they had still welcomed her in Folkvangr.

Thor convalesced poorly. He was a terrible patient, always had been. Sitting still was harder for him than nearly anything else and he kept pushing himself too far and too hard. He was sitting up when he should have been lying down, and standing when he should be sitting, and hobbling around with a cane when he had no business doing that at all, if ever.

The only thing he did that he was supposed to do was eat.

“You’re doing too much,” Frigga told him one morning, handing him a bowl of gruel with blood-fortifying herbs chopped into it. Thor made a face but ate it anyway.

“I hate this,” Thor complained. “I just want to get better. I’m so bored I could scream.”

“You’re going to walk yourself to death if you don’t fret yourself to death first,” Frigga said. “There’s going to be a show at the arena today. Why don’t we go see it? Get your mind off things.”

Thor sighed. “Fine.”

*

When the Thing met at Folkvang, the arena was used for friendly competitions between the clans—wrestling matches, group sparring, spear throwing, and other things of that nature. But the Thing only met once a year, and the rest of the time the sport was slightly more gruesome. They’d set Jotun thralls against each other, or against beasts, or even sometimes against fully armed Asgardians.

Thor slumped in the stands with Frigga. His leg was paining him greatly today, and he felt lightheaded and clammy. Despite the roar of the crowd his eyes kept trying to slam shut, and sometimes he’d get lost floating in the pained darkness for a moment until he could drag them open again. Here a trembling Jotun thrall and a wolf, and then his eyes closed, and when he opened them again there was nothing but a smear of red in the dirt. The next time, two thralls against the same wolf.

“Oh look, a Bear warrior,” Frigga murmured at his shoulder. Thor raised his head to see the Bear clan man enter the arena to a riot of cheering. He had an armored breastplate, a snarling bear helm, a sword and shield. He moved around the edge of the stands, riling spectators up.

Frigga made a noise of dismay. “They’ve set a thrall against him. That’s never a fair fight.”

At the other end of the dirt ring, the gate had opened and a Jotun thrall was shoved inside. The poor man was clad in nothing but breeches, and had been given nothing but a notched and rusty sword. He was dirty and pale and skinny, verging on scrawny, and his arms and torso were heavily tattooed with the swirling lines so common among his people. He ought to be cowering, but he wasn’t. He stood ramrod straight, shoulders back, chin high. His greasy black hair was tied back at the nape of his neck into a tail, and his eyes were so piercing a green that Thor could make out their color from across the stands.

Thor found himself transfixed.

“Who is that?” he asked his mother.

She shrugged. “Just a thrall.”

The thrall paced to the center of the ring and stood there, surveying the crowd. His eyes met Thor’s for a moment. Thor found himself suddenly wishing that this man would not die this day.

The Bear warrior turned to face the thrall, and, purposefully, the thrall held up his rusty sword and tossed it aside. A questioning noise went up from the crowd.

“Oh no,” Frigga said.

“He’s decided to die his way,” Thor said. He grimaced as pain shot through his leg.

“Come on, then,” the Bear warrior snarled. “What’s this? Not going to fight?”

The thrall simply stared at him, jaw set. The Bear feinted at him, but the thrall didn’t flinch.

Growling, the Bear hit him in the face with the butt of his sword hilt. The thrall’s head snapped to the side and he stumbled, and when he righted himself there was blood running from his lip and hatred in his eyes. His chest heaved.

“Not going to talk, either?” the Bear spat. “Jotun cunt like you probably don’t even know how to speak Asgardian.”

The thrall bared his teeth, and the Bear warrior hit him again.

“Fight!” the Bear warrior roared. He didn’t give the thrall time to right himself this time. He knocked him back with his shield, and when the thrall went down to his knees he hit him between the shoulderblades with the butt of his sword again. “Fight, you useless cunt!”

Thor closed his eyes, nauseous with pain and anxiety, and tried not to drift. He’d never cared whether a Jotun lived or died before, and he didn’t know why he cared now, but he did. Behind his closed eyelids he saw the battle he’d fought, saw Jotun after Jotun fall under his sword until his entire arm was red to the shoulder. He’d gloried in it, then. What good had it done, though? All those lives lost, for what?

He forced his eyes open again, and the thrall was on his back in the dirt. He’d still not said a word.

 _Get up and fight, you fool,_ Thor thought.

The Bear warrior stepped on the thrall’s stomach and drew a grunt from him. He dug the tip of his sword into the hollow of the thrall’s neck until a bead of blood welled up. Thor stared.

“What do you think!” the Bear warrior roared to the crowd. “Should I finish him!” The crowd yelled its approval.

The thrall’s chest worked madly to draw breath. He looked so thin and fragile and yet there was steel in this man. He had chosen his death, and was walking into it bravely. Something in Thor snapped.

“NO!” Thor cried out. He struggled to his feet, heaving himself up with his cane. “Let him live!”

The Bear warrior turned a disgusted look on him, but Thor turned to the crowd. “Let him live!” he cried again. “Come on, all of you!”

Frigga rose as well and added her voice to Thor’s. “Let him live!” she called out.

The tide of the crowd turned. They’d been thirsting for blood a moment ago, but perhaps seeing their beloved healer plead for life was enough to change their minds.

“Let him live!” a woman called out from across the stands, and then the chant was being taken up by the crowd. “Let him live! Let him live!”

Disgusted, the Bear warrior threw his sword into the dirt.

“Let him live!” Thor yelled, over and over again, until the Bear warrior finally stalked out of the arena, and the thrall struggled to sit up in the dirt. Their eyes locked again, and a spark of electricity sizzled through their shared gaze and down into Thor’s gut.

Suddenly enervated, Thor sank back down into his seat. He watched the arena thrall handlers lead the man away and wondered what in Ymir’s name had just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: a "[Thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_\(assembly\))" is actually a thing and not just me not wanting to make up a word :)


	2. Chapter 2

Thor sat up with effort the next morning. His leg throbbed. He peeked under the bandages and immediately wished he hadn’t. He grabbed his cane from where it perpetually stood next to the bed and laboriously climbed to his feet. The wash basin was perhaps six paces away. Thor gritted his teeth and took a step.

He was shaking by the time he got there, and he leaned heavily on the table. A beaten metal sheet hung over the basin, polished enough to see his slightly distorted reflection. He looked awful. Eyes bruised, skin and lips both pale. Sweat had broken out along his hairline and he pushed his limp hair back from his face. He pissed in the chamber pot and washed his hands and his face, rinsed his mouth out and spit. Looked back to the bed. Feared he wouldn’t make it.

“Mother!” he called out, despising his weakness.

Frigga glided into the room, carrying the scent of bacon with her. She set Thor’s breakfast tray down on the chest at the foot of his bed and took his elbow.

“I’ve bought you some help,” she said softly.

The thrall from the arena appeared in the doorway.

He was clean now, and clothed, with a torc around his neck, but the set of his jaw and the hardness of his eyes left little doubt that he’d rather be anywhere else. His lip was still split and one of his eyes was black.

“His name is Loki,” Frigga said. She nodded at Loki and he came and took Thor’s other elbow. “I have duties I must attend to,” she said, patting Thor’s arm and giving him a kiss on the cheek before she swished out the door.

Loki’s grip was strong and the wiry muscles of his arms were stronger; he had no problem getting Thor back over to the bed despite Thor’s size and the way he leaned on him. Thor was grunting by the time he got there, and he collapsed onto the mattress with a groan.

The fact that his mother had taken it upon herself to purchase help for him without asking grated at him, despite how obviously he needed it. And this particular thrall, of all people…

“I have no wish for a thrall,” he said.

“And I had no wish to be bought, but here I am,” Loki said. They were the first words he’d spoken. Thor should chastise a thrall for speaking in such a way, but the memory of Loki’s bravery from yesterday replayed in Thor’s mind and he couldn’t bring himself to tear the man down. Loki had a beautiful speaking voice, besides. It was deeper than Thor had imagined it would be, and his foreign accent rounded his vowels out and gave them a pleasant lilt. Thor had a strange desire to keep him talking and hear the shapes his voice would give the words.

“Why _are_ you here?” Thor asked. “My mother is a fearsome beast to be sure, but she would not have chased you should you have run. I know you don’t lack the courage necessary to escape.”

Loki stood as straight and stiff as he had in the arena.

“You saved my life,” he said tightly. “I owe you a debt of honor.”

Thor waved his hand. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I am the son of Laufey,” Loki said, “Great Ram of the North. My family understands honor.” He pulled the small knife from his belt and thrust it at Thor. For a moment Thor thought that Loki was trying to stab him, but then he realized Loki had reversed the blade and was offering it hilt first. Thor found himself taking it from Loki’s hands; the hilt was beautifully engraved with swirling ram horns. “My father’s dagger is my word. I hate—” Loki’s voice choked off, and he shook his head and blinked his eyes furiously. “I hate everything that you are and everything that you stand for. But you saved me. And for that, a life debt is owed and I must serve you.”

Thor looked at him, appraising. Did Jotuns really know so much of honor? He ran his thumb over the engravings on the dagger and tucked it into the boot on his good leg.

“I can trust you, then,” he said.

Loki’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“Good,” Thor said shortly. “Hand me my breakfast tray and leave me, and go get yourself something to eat. You look half starved.”

Loki gave him a startled look, and handed Thor his tray, and went.

*

“This is Eir,” Frigga said, already halfway out the door. “I have no talent for surgery, and no stomach for it either, so I’ve called her in to help you.”

Eir smiled at Thor politely as Frigga made herself scarce and began setting her tools out on the table—scalpels and saws and pincers and other more sinister looking things that made Thor feel a bit green around the gills. Loki stood in the corner, arms crossed. He studied the tools and Thor’s bandaged leg while trying to look like he wasn’t doing either. Thor had noticed him doing that a lot over the past few days while his wound deteriorated.

“Your mother tells me that your men set your leg as best they could on the battlefield,” Eir said, “but that it’s healing poorly and needs to be reopened and examined.”

“Yes,” Thor said. Though he hadn’t moved from the bed since relieving himself that morning he was breathing as though he’d climbed a mountain. The agony from his leg was a constant nauseating horror.

“Let’s have a look first,” she said, and began unwrapping his bandages.

Thor didn’t dare look down, but he didn’t need to. Loki’s face told him everything. It was the first time he’d seen Thor’s leg; shock and disgust warred for a brief moment before an unbearable pity settled into his eyes. Then he looked to Thor’s face. Thor looked back, expressionless, and the pity hardened into something else. If Thor didn’t know better he might call it grudging respect.

Eir didn’t flinch.

“Tie him down,” she instructed Loki.

Loki seemed to take great relish in strapping Thor to the bed as tightly as he could. Thor didn’t give him the satisfaction of groaning, though if he’d been alone he was afraid that was exactly how he’d be shaming himself. Groaning, wailing, sobbing. Crying for his mother. Falling on his own sword. He felt so weak.

“Hold his shoulders,” Eir said. “Put your weight on him.”

Loki gingerly touched Thor’s shoulders. Thor couldn’t suppress the shudder that rolled through him.

“I said put your weight on him,” Eir said sharply.

Loki huffed, and pressed down harder. Put his forearm across Thor’s sternum. Leaned all his weight on him until Thor thought he might not be able to breathe from the combination of pressure and pain and anticipation. Thor stared into Loki’s eyes, helpless. Their faces were so close he could see the flecks of gold in Loki’s irises.

 _Pretty,_ he thought distantly.

“Remember to breathe,” Eir said.

White-hot agony exploded and Thor’s eyes rolled back in his head. He tried to flail, but couldn’t. Loki’s arms on his shoulders were heavy and implacable. Desperately, he found Loki’s eyes again. Held them. Tried to drown in their green-gold depths. He was dying. He was dying. A high whine escaped him for a brief second, and he swallowed it. Loki’s eyes. They were right there. They were the only real thing in the world. Thor’s leg wasn’t real, the pain wasn’t real, Eir wasn’t real. Only Loki’s weight and Loki’s eyes, and Loki mouthing his name, _Thor_ , and _yes_ , Thor wanted to say, _that’s me_ , but then the fire consumed him and the sweetness of oblivion dragged him under and he knew no more.

*

Thor didn’t move from his bed for the next week. His mother came to check on him every morning and evening, but in between it was just Thor and Loki and the four walls of his mother’s guest quarters.

Eir had rebroken part of his leg, and fished out some debris that had been trapped in the wound, and stitched everything up neatly and precisely. She left them with bandages and salves and instructions to keep everything as clean and motionless as possible. So Loki bathed him with warm wet clothes, and washed his hair in a basin he brought to the bed, and brought him food and drink, and even fed him and tipped the liquid into his mouth when Thor was too weak to do it himself.

Something had shifted between the two of them since Thor had passed out under Loki’s body. Loki no longer looked at Thor with hatred in his eyes. Instead, he looked at him like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. Thor recognized the look, for he was regarding Loki the same way. 

“I didn’t know you had been in so much pain,” Loki had said the first day after the surgery. He was peeling the sweat soaked covers off of Thor’s body to change them for fresh ones. Thor had given him a tight-lipped smile in return.

It fell to Loki to clean and redress Thor’s wound as well. Every morning he’d check the bandages and put on some of Eir’s salve, put fresh linens on, and wrap Thor’s leg tightly to a short rod. It was the worst part of Thor’s day and yet also, oddly, the best. He hated to see his leg, hated the stink of the salve, hated what the injury stood for. The useless waste of it all. And yet. The way Loki tended to him was so gentle. Competent. Soothing. His long-fingered hands were deft and sure. Thor found himself staring at them more often than he should. He noticed the callouses—a warrior’s callouses, not a farmer nor a tradesman. He wondered how Loki had been captured.

After the first day or two, when Thor was beginning to feel more like himself, he began to imagine what Loki’s hands might feel like if they touched him elsewhere. His cheeks reddened and he banished the thought from his mind.

By the third day, even though Thor was in no state to move, he was ready to climb the walls.

“Stop huffing,” Loki told him. “If you try to get out of that bed it’s me who will have to deal with it when you inevitably fall flat on your face and reopen everything. I’ll tie you down again if I have to.”

He sat on the edge of Thor’s bed with a tray of food balanced on his lap and began cutting it into small pieces for him. Thor stared, captivated. He knew he shouldn’t let Loki talk to him like this, but it intrigued him. He was finding it hard to see Loki as a thrall, anyway. His bearing was too regal. His honor too prickly.

Thor took the plate from him when he was finished cutting.

“Can you read Asgardian?” Thor asked him. 

Loki snorted. “Of course I can. My father was—”

“The Great Ram, yes I know,” Thor said. “That doesn’t mean you can read Asgardian. I’m the Son of Odin but I can’t read Jotun.”

“Son of Odin,” Loki said. “You?” His brow drew together. “Raven clan?”

“Yes,” Thor said. He began to eat.

“Well,” Loki said, affecting an unconcerned air. “I wouldn’t expect barbarians like you to learn Jotun.”

It was probably meant to be an insult, but Thor couldn’t help it, he laughed.

“Barbarians are what my people call yours,” Thor said.

“Just what a barbarian would say.”

Thor laughed more heartily, and Loki smiled back at him.

“Well, then, my _not-barbarian_ ,” Thor said, “I would greatly enjoy it if you could read to me. It will save you from having to tie me to the bed, at any rate.”

They passed afternoons thusly for the rest of the week. Frigga had a small book collection that she allowed Loki free access to. He sat on a stool next to the bed and read aloud and Thor stared at the ceiling, counting the timbers and watching the honey-warm afternoon light creep across them and letting Loki’s rounded lilting vowels wash over him. After the first afternoon, Thor noticed Loki shifting uncomfortably on the stool and made him sit on the bed instead; Thor arranged as comfortably as he could be on his back, Loki sitting up at his right side propped against the wall with a pillow.

Sometimes, Thor found himself wishing to roll over and wrap his arm around Loki’s waist, bury his face in Loki’s side. Loki was his thrall. He was allowed to do that to him and Loki couldn’t say no.

Thor didn’t.

After that first week, Frigga came in one morning with a chair on wheels.

“What is that?” Thor asked.

“It’s something I’ve been working on with the carpenters,” Frigga said. “A way for people to get around who can’t walk. You sit here, and someone can push you.”

Thor looked over to Loki and raised an eyebrow and Loki raised an eyebrow right back.

Loki began by pushing Thor around Frigga’s home. The chair was a bit unwieldy and they had to learn how to work together to get it around corners and over bumps, Thor shifting his weight, trusting Loki not to let him tip over completely. Once they’d gotten the hang of it, Loki started taking him outside.

Thor wanted to weep the first time he felt the wind on his face. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed deep and fancied he could smell the scent of his home carried to him from leagues away.

“It’s beginning to rain,” Loki said. “I’ll take you back inside.”

“No,” Thor said. “I want to feel it.”

After the gift of Frigga’s chair, Loki took him out every morning rain or shine. They went to the river, or the playhouse, or the market. And they’d talk.

Thor realized that he’d never actually really had anyone to talk to before. Hela was his leader, not his confidant, and he’d never had the time or opportunity to make friends with a peer. Not that he had many. Disgraced chieftain’s sons were hardly easy to come by.

He tried to remind himself that Loki was his thrall, not his friend, but it was hard. Loki had been the son of a Jotun chieftain just as Thor had been the son of an Asgardian one, and their lives had been more similar than they’d been different. Loki was clever as well, and funny, and he made Thor laugh, and if Loki still hated him, he hid it so well that Thor would never even suspect it if it hadn’t been one of the first things Loki had ever said to him.

The people of Folkvang eyed the two of them askance when they were out in public. Folkvang officially belonged to no clan, but there were people of every clan here, and they all looked down on Raven; while Thor’s feat of bravery had earned him a bit of respect, he was still Odin’s son. And his Jotun thrall was mouthy, and Thor never chastised him, and the two of them laughed together far more than any master and slave should.

“We’ll be able to go back home soon,” Thor said one day. Loki was pushing him slowly along the beaten dirt path that ran parallel to the river.

“Raven clan, you mean?” Loki asked. Thor couldn’t see his face, but his tone sounded neutral.

“Yes. I think I should be able to sit a horse well enough in another week or so.”

*

Thor never got the chance to go home. Hela showed up four days later.

“Brother,” she said, kissing Thor on both cheeks.

“Sister. I’m sorry I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail,” Hela said. Her eyes were hard but her tone was gentle. “But you didn’t succeed either. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“Enough heavy talk,” Frigga said, patting both their cheeks. “Food first.”

The three of them sat down to the largest meal Thor had had since he got to Folkvang. Chicken and turnips and carrots swimming in butter, fresh bread studded with currants, soft white cheese, roasted chestnuts, good brown ale. Loki served them in silence, but Thor knew his quick ears were taking everything in.

“I still haven’t received an invitation to sit on the council at the Thing, despite our military win,” Hela said after her third tankard of ale. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’ve half a mind to simply show up and demand a seat.”

“They’d throw you out,” Frigga said. “I don’t know if you’d recover politically.”

“I know,” Hela said. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop, her habitual nervous tic. “I have another idea.”

“What is it?” Thor asked.

Hela looked at him, her mouth tight. “I’ve heard...reports.”

“Reports?”

“Rumors. Nothing more than that. Of a Jotun tribe, far to the north…”

“What about them?” Thor asked when Hela seemed unlikely to continue on her own. Her eyes had wandered off past his shoulder to stare into space. She snapped them back to look at him again.

“That they have Gungnir,” she said.

Frigga inhaled sharply. Thor gripped his tankard. There was a clatter behind him, and Thor realized Loki had dropped the pitcher of ale. He fell to his knees and began mopping it up with a cloth as Hela continued.

“If we could get it back,” Hela said. “They would have to legitimize us.”

“But how is that possible?” Frigga asked. “You said yourself it’s only a rumor. And we can’t send our people that far into Jotunheim. They’d be slaughtered.”

“I’ll go,” Thor said. Both women turned to look at him, and Loki ceased cleaning to stare at him as well. “One man can succeed where an army can’t,” he said. “And look at me. What use am I anymore? I’m nothing but dead weight, figuratively and literally.”

He found himself clutching the raven around his neck. It dug into his palm. This might be his chance. All of their chances. A way to secure a future for their people, regain honor for their family. Succeed where his father had failed.

“No Asgardian can survive in Jotunheim alone,” Hela said.

Thor looked at Loki. “I won’t be alone. I have Loki. He knows the land. He speaks the language.”

Hela scoffed and took another swig of ale. “He’s a Jotun barbarian and a thrall besides,” she said. “The minute you’re alone he’ll slit your throat.”

“No he won’t,” Thor said. “He gave his word.”

“And what good is that?” Hela said. “The word of a thrall.”

“His word is a damn sight better than most,” Thor said. “And if I’m wrong, well…”

He met Loki’s eyes and a long searching look passed between them. He felt that electricity again, the spark that had sizzled between them in the arena. Trusting Loki may be foolish, but it felt _right_ , and Thor would rather be a fool for honor than a wise man for faithlessness.

“If I’m wrong, I’ll die,” Thor said.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Thor got out of bed with a cane and tended to his leg himself before Loki woke up. Loki tutted at him when he came in with Thor’s breakfast and made Thor let him double check it.

“I need to be able to do this myself,” Thor said while Loki unwound the bandages. “I need to be able to walk. We can’t go until I can.”

“Well then, you’d better wait a month,” Loki said.

“I don’t have a month.” 

Thor pushed himself to a slow amble around his room with the cane. He was sweating by the end of it, but he’d done it.

“Sit down and rest now,” Loki said, his hand firm on Thor’s shoulder.

“No. I’m doing it again.”

And he did. Again. And again. Loki was an ever-present shadow at his side, waiting to catch him should he stumble. He didn’t until his fifth circuit of the room, when his trembling knee finally gave out underneath him. Loki caught him before he could go down completely, got a shoulder under his arm and guided him back to the bed.

“Thank you,” Thor said.

“There’s no need to thank a slave,” Loki muttered, more to himself than to Thor, but Thor heard it anyway. His grabbed at Loki’s wrist as Loki went to pull away.

“I mean it,” Thor said as earnestly as he could. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done this last month without you.”

“Thank your mother for buying me,” Loki said sharply.

“You know that's not why you're here. Have I done something to anger you?” Thor asked.

Loki glared at him for a moment, but then his eyes softened and he tugged his hand gently away.

“You makes things difficult sometimes,” was all Loki said.

Thor missed the contact. Besides realizing he’d never really had a friend before, he was also starting to realize how rarely he actually touched other people. The violence of training and fighting was nothing like the gentle intimacy involved when Loki cared for him.

“I’m afraid it will only get more difficult from here,” Thor said.

“I can’t wait,” Loki said drily.

*

They rode out within the week. Thor pushed himself harder and farther each day until he was walking freely on his own. He still had to be careful where to place his feet, and his endurance wasn’t what it had been before he’d ridden into battle, but he knew that in time he’d gain his strength and stamina both back. 

Hela provided them with horses and supplies. They had light armor, sharp swords, a hunting bow, and enough food to last them a month if they supplemented it with small game. If Thor was successful in his quest and got back before the food ran out, Hela would be able to bring Gungnir with her to the Thing.

“Don’t fail, little brother,” Hela said. Thor’s carved raven swung from his neck as he leaned down from his horse to clasp her forearm, and she tapped it with the knuckles of her other hand. “Raven is depending on you.” She gave Loki a measured look, and he tightened his hold on his horse’s reins and made it dance sideways.

Thor had never ridden into Jotunheim before. He’d lived near the border his whole life, but crossing it had never been something he’d dared. There was one main road between Jotunheim and Asgard, and a wooden palisade marked the boundary between the two. It was Asgardian construction, and manned by Asgardian warriors. They scoffed when Thor and Loki rode up alone, but they let them through.

“It’s your funeral,” a Wolf said, shrugging.

Thor didn’t know what he was expecting. The air to smell different, maybe. The sky to close in.

Instead, the road and grass and trees and sky were all the same, and the air too. The only difference was that Thor had gone from being a disgraced chieftain’s son to a nobody, and perhaps that wasn’t such a bad change after all.

Next to him, Loki let out a long sigh, like he’d been holding his breath.

“What is it?” Thor asked.

“I never thought I’d be in Jotunheim again,” Loki said. His voice sounded tight.

“Did you miss it?” Thor asked. He shifted in his saddle, trying to get his leg comfortable as the horse jostled him with its movement.

“Yes,” Loki said. “...and no. It’s complicated.”

“Now _that_ I understand all too well.”

They rode on in silence punctuated by the sound of their horses’ hooves on the packed dirt of the road, and the creak of their saddles, and the calls of wild birds. It was early spring yet, and not overly warm, but there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to help spare their eyes from the glare of the sun. Around midday they passed into a more wooded area and the shade was a welcome respite. Loki took down a pair of squirrels with his bow and tied them to his saddle. They were still in the woods when the sun began to go down. Loki scouted around off the road until he found a suitable place to set up camp for the night. Thor was feeling thoroughly useless by this point, so he insisted on skinning and gutting the squirrels himself while Loki built the fire.

“This road will take us to Utgard,” Loki said, poking at the kindling to coax it alight. “I don’t think your spear is there. We’ll have to go overland to get to the place your rumors spoke of.”

Night fell completely as they ate. Thor watched Loki in the firelight. The way it played over Loki’s face mesmerized him, how it shadowed his eyes and highlighted his cheekbones and brought out the faint red hue in his dark curls. It made him look fey, otherwordly. Like Loki could take Thor by the hand and lead him off into the darkness and into a different realm completely, and that Thor would be happy to follow. Loki caught Thor looking at him, and he smiled.

“I wonder…” Thor said. His thoughts had been consuming him all day, and he dared to let some of them out. “I’ve spent so much of my life wondering what happened to my father here. How he was defeated. If he might still be alive. My child’s heart still hopes beyond hope that we might find him here in Jotunheim, as well. Maybe hidden in some glade, Gungnir in his hand, just waiting for me to come find him.”

Loki snorted. “A fine fairy tale,” he said. “Is that why we’re here, to find your father? If so I’m afraid you may be sorely disappointed.”

“No. I meant only to—” Thor sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t know what you expect to accomplish finding this spear, either,” Loki said. There was a hint of acid in his voice. “Is it magical?”

Thor smiled sadly. “Nothing like that,” he said. The fire popped and crackled. “Every Raven Chieftain has wielded it since Asgard first came together as a people. Every bit of glory Raven ever won, Gungnir was there. It’s...it _is_ Raven clan. It’s a symbol of our honor. Without it, we’re nothing. A laughing stock. Barely Asgardian. With it...we regain ourselves. We become Asgard again. Do you understand?”

Loki’s jaw had gone tight while Thor was talking, and he stared intensely into the fire.

“On my nameday,” Loki began softly, “the year I became a man, your _Asgard_ attacked my father’s lands. And when we tried to rise against you, both of my brothers died. My mother as well.” Loki looked up at Thor and caught his gaze, and Thor was unable to look away. “Do you know what happened to her? My father killed her himself before your _Asgard’s_ warriors broke our door down so that they couldn’t take her. And then they killed him and put me in chains. I don’t know what Asgard means to you, but _that_ is what Asgard means to me. Do _you_ understand?” Loki was dry eyed, but his voice shook by the end, and his face had gone hard. He was steel, forged in fire and grief; Thor felt himself cut to the quick.

Loki stood. “Perhaps you ought to think about what your Asgard has ever done for you,” he said.

Before Thor could respond, Loki turned his back and stalked over to his bedroll.

Sleep had a hard time finding Thor that night.

*

They rose with the dawn the next morning. Thor watched Loki as they broke camp. He wasn’t sure how exactly he had been seeing Loki before. As more than a thrall, certainly. Perhaps not quite an equal. An uncertain friend. But he realized now that he’d never truly seen him at all. He thought that maybe now he was starting to.

“Loki,” Thor said. Loki paused in scattering the ashes from the fire and looked up. “I don’t want you to misunderstand. I do want Gungnir back, but...I only want it to give my people a better life.”

“A better life killing my people.”

“No,” Thor said. “I laid awake half the night, and it rent my heart in two to think that you’re only helping me because of your oath, and how much pain this must be causing you. I have no wish to regain our seat on the council only to use it to make war. I have no wish to expand our borders, or to kill your people. If we do this, if we succeed...I make an oath to _you_ , now, that I will use our clan’s voice to argue for peace with Jotunheim. On my honor as a Raven, and an Odinson.”

Loki drew in a sharp breath. His next words were unexpected.

“Don’t look behind you,” Loki said, his expression unchanging. “But there are bandits in the trees. Three of them. Are there any behind me?”

Thor’s eyes darted around, but he saw nothing.

“I don’t see any,” he said, trying not to move his mouth.

“I hear at least one,” Loki said. His eyes flicked to Thor’s sword leaning against his pack. “Are you ready?”

Thor’s hand flexed of its own accord.

“On three.”

They burst into action as one. Thor grabbed his sword, drawing it from its scabbard and swinging it around in a wide arc behind him in one fluid motion. Loki dove for his hunting bow and came up firing.

It was quick, brutal, and messy.

Adrenaline surged through Thor and for a few moments he forgot about his leg, forgot about his emotional crisis. All that existed was the fight. He took one man through the gut, and he went down screaming. Loki’s arrow sprouted from the neck of another.

A dirty snarling man with a spiked club came at Thor roaring. Thor blocked the first swing, and the second. Instinctively he tried to kick the man in the chest to knock him back, but when he put all of his weight on his left leg it buckled. He started going down himself, cursing, and he vainly raised his arm as though it would stop the club whistling at his head.

“THOR!” he heard Loki scream, and then the head of an arrow burst through the man’s throat.

Thor staggered to his feet in time to see the final man tackle Loki to the ground. They rolled in the dirt, teeth bared, trying to get their hands around each other’s throats. The bandit managed to roll on top of Loki, and he dug his elbow into Loki’s neck and raised a long knife with the other hand to plunge into Loki’s side.

Bellowing, Thor put his shoulder down and charged, and knocked the bandit flat onto his back. Thor’s sword rose and fell, and fell, and made a red ruin of the man’s face, until finally Thor fell backwards, chest heaving.

A touch on his shoulder had him whirling around again, ready to strike, but it was Loki. A cut above Loki’s brow was bleeding freely down his face, and his eyes were huge and starkly green against the crimson.

“You saved me again,” Loki said.

Thor huffed out an incredulous laugh, and vainly wiped his sleeve in the mess on Loki’s face.

“You saved me too,” Thor said. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I think so,” Loki said. He looked slightly dazed. Thor put his arm around him, and they leaned on each other as they staggered back over to the remains of their campsite.

Thor collapsed onto a rock, his bad leg stiffly out in front of him, and clutched at his thigh so that he wouldn’t whimper.

“Let me look at it,” Loki said softly.

In silence, Loki unwrapped Thor’s leg and tended to it. Thor watched the top of Loki’s head as he bent over him, the fall of his black curls that had been torn loose from the tie he usually pulled them back with. Thor had the strongest desire to thread his fingers into that hair, draw Loki up, and kiss him, blood and all.

Thor’s heart hurt. He could have died out here in the forest of Jotunheim. Or worse, Loki could have died. Nothing had ever seemed more detestable.

“Did you mean what you said before?” Loki said to Thor’s knee. His hands had paused in their work and they rested gently on either side of Thor’s calf.

“I don’t swear oaths lightly,” Thor said. He reached down and covered one of Loki’s hands with his own. Startled, Loki looked up, and Thor locked their fingers together and gave his hand a squeeze. Loki squeezed back.

Thor dropped Loki’s hand. “Let me wash the blood from your face when you’re done,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

Thor knew only two things about where Gungnir might be. First, that reports put it not in Utgard, but in some more remote place, and second, that that place was most likely north. The road they were on carried them north for awhile, and so they kept to it until it made a wide bend to the west.

“This is where we have a decision to make,” Loki said. “Which direction would you like to go?” They’d ridden off the road to a small rise. Thor could see the forest falling away to the south and west, and dingy scrubby looking moorlands to the north and east. Loki saw him peering off towards the northern horizon. “If it wasn’t cloudy you could see the mountains over there,” Loki said. “Ymir’s Teeth, we call them. Some say they’re the end of the world, but…” He shrugged.

“But what?”

“I say those people lack imagination.”

“Where do you think the end of the world is, then?”

Loki shook his head, half smiling, and tapped his chest over his heart. “In here. There’s always more world to see. The only thing you need is the courage to do it.”

Loki was forever saying startling things like this, as though he were a philosopher. Thor fell silent for a moment. His hand stole to the raven around his neck and he stared out into the hazy gray sky like he could see the mountains if he looked hard enough.

“My father marched here ten years ago,” Thor said. “No one at home knows where he fought his last battle. Was it here, do you think? Did they fight and die well? Or were they slaughtered in their sleep like animals? I wish I knew anything about it. It’s the not knowing that stings the worst.” Loki looked at him, expression unreadable, and tried to keep his horse from shying sideways.

 _Father, which way did you go?_ Thor asked silently. _To world’s end? Do I have the courage to follow you there?_ He brought the carving to his lips and his eyes fell shut.

The low hoarse cry of a raven pierced the air, and a breeze kissed Thor’s face from the northeast. He could not ask for a better omen.

“That direction,” Thor said, opening his eyes and pointing.

They rode for two days before finding a village.

“Just keep your mouth closed and let me do the talking,” Loki said. “The minute you speak it will all be over.”

“I don’t know if I like this,” Thor said.

“Might I remind you that this entire escapade was your idea—” Loki began, a little testily. 

Thor couldn’t hide his grin. “You could be making fun of my hair for all I know,” he said, “or my horse, or my taste in boots—”

Loki rolled his eyes and smacked Thor in the shoulder, but the corners of his mouth had gone up as well.

“You’re absolutely right,” Loki said. “I came to the wilds of Jotunheim with you expressly to make fun of your hair to the villagers.”

“I knew it,” Thor said with mock affront. “My honor shall never recover.”

The village was no more than a cluster of small houses huddled together in a dip of the moors. A handful of people gathered as they rode up. Thor stayed ahorse, and Loki leaped lightly down to speak with them in low melodic tones. Thor wished he knew more of the Jotun language.

Loki came back over and touched Thor’s right calf and Thor leaned down to better hear him.

“I told them you were mute, so don’t do more than nod,” Loki murmured, for Thor’s ears only. “The scruffy one says his uncle fought against the Asgardian invaders, but he doesn’t know any details. He says if we go over that rise we’ll find a river with some good fishing. They don’t know anything else.”

And so it went. They headed northeast, and when they ran across people, Loki spoke with them and learned what he could. There was never enough information, but it was enough to keep Thor going. Enough small hints dropped that indicated they were on the right path.

At night, they would make camp and eat whatever they’d managed to catch or fish that day, supplemented with the dried foods they’d brought with them. Loki would check Thor’s leg. Neither of them wished to have to fight bandits again, but they both knew it was a distinct possibility, and so they tried to keep their reflexes sharp by sparring. It had the added bonus of helping to strengthen Thor’s leg; the muscles had atrophied over his weeks of inactivity.

They’d talk. Thor grew to look forward to that more than anything. His days were plagued by the anxiety of possible failure, his evenings by the anxiety that he was doomed to be weak and lame forever. But after that was done for the day, it was like a spell stole over them, woven by the pop and crackle of the campfire, brushed across their skin in hues of flickering orange and gold. The world beyond their fire ceased to exist and for a little while they were free from duty. Free from stress. Free to simply share thoughts and feelings far too intimate to be exposed to the light of day, shadowy words gilded in flame.

One night as Thor watched Loki lean back on his hands and recount some childish antic that had him smiling in fond nostalgia, eyes crinkling at the corners, he suddenly hated, passionately, that his people had ever tried to control this man. Loki was not a thrall to be commanded. Thor wondered, perhaps for the first time in his life, about the humanity of all the others that his people had enslaved. He found that it sat bitterly in his stomach.

As they made their way north it grew colder. Back home, spring would be in full swing by now, the ice melting, the trees beginning to bud. Here, winter still held on with icy fingers. Without speaking about it, Thor and Loki began to sit closer to each other at night by the fire. Shoulders and knees touching. Thor’s bedroll seemed even colder by comparison when they retired for sleep. In the darkness behind his closed lids, thoughts would come upon him. Of a warm body next to his. Of Loki’s gaze on him, heavy and aching.

“You need warmer clothes,” Loki said to him one morning, his breath visible in the frosty air. “You’re not used to this kind of weather. You’re going to catch your death.”

They ran across a village that afternoon, and Thor hung back while Loki spoke with them. He saw Loki gesturing, heard their voices raise. Loki came back over.

“They’ll trade us some furs,” Loki said. “I suspect they want our horses, but they say they’ll take your necklace.”

Thor found himself clutching the raven so hard his knuckles went white.

“No,” he said, low and harsh. “Anything else.”

Loki’s eyes flicked down to it and back up. “It means that much to you?”

“My father carved it for me himself,” Thor said. Loki nodded, and went back to the villagers, who were staring at them distrustfully.

They ended up trading Thor’s belt with its fine carved buckle, and Loki’s torc. Loki ran his hands over the necklace with a grimace before handing it over. In return they each received a bear pelt. Thor felt a bit like a bear himself with it wrapped around him, and felt he must look ridiculous, a great furry lump slumped atop a saddle. He was undeniably warmer, though. Loki looked regal in his. Straight-backed and proud, like he had been born to rule this frigid land.

“We’d best ride fast,” Loki said. “In case they decide to come after us and take the horses after all.”

That night, they sat huddled next to the fire, each inside their own fur. Thor couldn’t stop shivering.

“Come here,” Loki said. Thor looked at him questioningly. They were already shoulder to shoulder. Loki shook his arms free of his fur and held it open in invitation. The look on his face was unreadable. Hesitantly, Thor took his own fur off and slipped in next to Loki. Loki threw the heavy pelt around his shoulder and wrapped his arm around him, and Thor took his own discarded pelt and laid it across their laps. It was much warmer sharing body heat. Thor shivered again, but this time not from cold.

“I wish you could read to me,” Thor said softly.

“Mm,” Loki said, and tightened his arm around Thor. Then, somewhat tentatively, “I could sing to you, if you like.”

Going to his own bedroll that night was one of the hardest things Thor had ever done.

*

Thor’s leg ached the next day and he couldn’t get it comfortable no matter how he sat his horse.

“Storm is coming in,” Thor told Loki.

Loki scoffed. “The sky is clear. What do you know of Jotunheim’s weather?”

“I may not know Jotunheim, but I do know the sky,” Thor said. He always had, for some reason. “And my leg can feel it.”

It began snowing soon after midday, big fat flakes that went from melting to sticking alarmingly quickly as the temperature dropped. Loki’s horse stumbled on a slick rock that had been hidden under the thin coat of accumulating snow, and he cursed.

“We need shelter,” Loki said.

The moorlands offered precious little of that. There were no trees, no deep caves. They struggled around to the lee side of a small ridge and found a rock overhang with a shallow depression. It would have to do. Loki helped Thor down from his horse, as his leg was so stiff he could hardly bend it. Loki tied the horses up as near to the overhang as he could, then took one of their blankets and hung it up across the overhang and weighted the bottom down with rocks, making them a cave to keep the snow from piling up on them. There was room enough for both of them to lie down, but only if they were touching. They doubled up the bedrolls to keep the chill of the ground out of their bones, and Loki pulled the furs over them.

“No fire,” Loki said apologetically. “The smoke has nowhere to get out.”

“This is fine,” Thor said, teeth chattering.

There wasn’t enough room for them to both lie flat on their backs, and Thor found himself on his left side. Facing Loki. He supposed turning the other way would have been a better idea, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to put his arm around Loki the way he’d been dreaming of for weeks. He’d never have a better excuse.

So he did. He made a little bit of a fuss adjusting the furs around them, and then let his hand come back down to rest on Loki’s middle. Slid his hand over until he was embracing him one-armed. Closed his eyes. Waited for an acid remark, or a shove, or, worse, disgust.

Instead, Loki turned on his left side too, facing away from Thor. But he took Thor’s hand and pulled his arm around him, holding Thor’s hand to his heart. Letting out his breath, Thor snuggled closer, spooning up until their legs slotted together as well and he had a face full of Loki’s hair.

They slept.

Thor woke hours later. It was nearly dark, and he was stiff. Somehow in his sleep he’d turned over on his other side, and now it was Loki’s arm around his middle, Loki’s hand splayed across his belly.

Just an inch lower and Loki would be…

Shamefully, Thor felt his cock stir. He laid unmoving for long minutes, savoring the feel of Loki pressed all up against his back, and willed his cock to go back down.

He wasn’t sure when Loki woke up. He’d been lost in thought and missed the moment when Loki’s breathing changed, missed that almost imperceptible tensing that accompanied the slide from sleep to wakefulness.

What he didn’t miss was the unmistakable hardness poking him in the small of the back.

“Sorry,” Loki muttered, and began to pull away.

Before he knew what he was doing, Thor reached back behind him and grabbed at Loki’s hip, pulled it towards him while pushing his own back.

“Don’t go,” Thor said.

This was unforgivable of him, he knew. Honor bound Loki to help him, but it didn’t bind him to this. This was a master taking advantage of a thrall. Thor couldn’t help it though, he _wanted_ , so badly he could scarcely breathe.

Loki’s fingers tightened on his middle, digging in.

“I will not be used by you,” Loki hissed in his ear.

“Then use me instead,” Thor heard himself say. He couldn’t believe he’d spoken it aloud.

Loki grabbed Thor’s left shoulder and pushed him onto his back. Thor went willingly. The light was fading, and Loki’s face was a pale smudge in the dark, his eyes burning as he leaned over Thor. Thor reached up and wordlessly touched Loki’s cheek, and his shoulder. And then Loki was cursing, and he flung his leg over Thor’s waist to straddle him.

Thor had never been in such an intimate position with anyone before. It was shocking, and thrilling, and he bucked his hips up despite himself.

“Is this some perverse fantasy of yours?” Loki asked. He put his hands on either side of Thor’s face and loomed over him, but he didn’t pull away. “Do you lie here at night dreaming of being taken by a slave?”

“No,” Thor said. His brain and tongue were both woolly and useless. He couldn’t think of any words to say besides painfully true ones. “I dream of being taken by you.”

He shocked himself with his admission. He'd finally said it, given a shape to all the half-formed fragments of desire that tormented him every time he thought about Loki; he'd said it and there was no taking it back. An excited nausea gripped his stomach.

Loki made some kind of sound that Thor finally recognized as a strange sort of choking laughter. He buried his face in Thor’s neck, and his hips bucked down into Thor’s as Thor pressed upwards. The feel of his cock rubbing against someone else set Thor ablaze over every inch of his body and he fought not to whimper.

“You vex me so,” Loki breathed in his ear. The roughness of his voice shot straight down Thor’s spine and made his toes curl in his boots.

“Loki,” Thor pleaded.

“I’ll rip you in half without oil. Get on your side again.”

Thor did, and then Loki was shoving both their breeches down to their knees.

“Wait,” Thor said. He wiggled his foot out of his boot on his good leg and kicked it up until he could reach it. He’d stuffed rags inside to help keep his feet warm and he pulled them out. His fevered brain had just imagined the both of them spilling all over their clothes and furs and ruining them. “Alright, alr- _aaah._ "

Loki had been slicking himself with spit, and he’d just thrust between Thor’s clenched thighs.

He felt big. Thor trembled with it. He wanted to see Loki’s cock, to taste it. To find out how it would feel inside of him, rubbing against his most intimate places. He’d never used the word “empty” to describe himself before, but that’s how he felt now—empty and ready to be filled by whatever Loki gave him. His body, his touch, his breath.

Thor brought his hand down between his own thighs and felt the head of Loki’s cock as it peeked through to greet him with each thrust. The tip of him was warm and velvet. The length of Loki’s cock dragged against the skin of his thighs, along the delicate skin of his bollocks and that shivering little place between bollocks and hole, a pantomime of what he could be doing right now, and Thor’s heart raced.

Thor found himself reaching back to slide his hands into Loki’s hair and pull his face closer. Loki’s breath panted hot in Thor’s ear and Loki made a noise, a tiny voiced thing, helpless sounding. Thor wanted desperately to kiss him. He tried to turn his head and seek Loki’s lips, but Loki put his hand over Thor’s mouth, stuck four fingers in past his lips to hook over his teeth and hold onto his jaw.

“You ruin me,” Loki said, his voice edged with despair, and he sucked on Thor’s earlobe, hard, as he thrust against him.

Thor fumbled for the rag. Loki seemed close. Thor cupped the rag around where their flesh met, and Loki clutched at him and spent into it. Thor felt the wetness spreading through the cloth, and his grip tightened on it reflexively.

“Give me a bit of that,” Loki whispered. Thor opened his fist and Loki felt around in the dark til their hands met. He gathered a little of his own slick on his fingers. The first touch of his hand on Thor’s cock had Thor gasping, and the second had him writhing.

“Loki,” Thor pleaded, again. He barely had the presence of mind to bring the rag to his own cock as he spilled.

They didn’t speak afterwards. Thor certainly had no idea what to say, and nor, he suspected, did Loki. Thor set the evidence of their bodies’ frailty aside and they tugged their breeches back up. Loki rolled away from him afterward, onto his left side. Unsure, Thor placed his hand on Loki’s waist. Loki took it and drew Thor’s arm around him. The wind moaned on the other side of the blanket. They slept again.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun rose the next morning on a world blanketed in white. Thor might have thought that what had happened last night had been a dream except for the soiled rag staring mutely at him when he opened his eyes. He certainly had no indication from Loki. Loki stirred beside him, yawned, then rose and began tugging their blanket wall down.

Thor’s leg was stiff with the cold and he kneaded it trying to loosen it up.

“I’m going to check the horses,” Loki said.

The going was slow that day. It was too dangerous to ride the horses with the ground obscured as it was. There were too many hidden dangers lurking under the snow: roots, loose rocks, holes. They couldn’t afford to have one of the horses break an ankle. So they walked next to them, the pace set by Thor. His leg began to ache after the first hour, and by the second it was on fire, but he gritted his teeth and walked on. He wouldn’t be the weak link.

Thor almost spoke a handful of times, but each time the words lodged in his throat. He’d never had a gift for talking and he was afraid that anything he might say would only cast him in a foolish light, or worse, anger Loki. Instead he lost himself in the memory of last night, playing it over and over. Loki’s rough voice saying _you vex me so_ sent a tingle through him each time he thought of it, the hairs on his arms raising, his nipples tightening. Likewise the memory of the velvet feel of Loki’s cockhead peeking through his thighs and the helpless little noise he had made in Thor’s ear. It was a welcome distraction from the pain of walking, and he was half hard and breathless by the time they stopped to eat at midday. They’d passed into a more wooded area, and the snow wasn’t quite as deep here under the pines. It seemed a better place to stop than most.

“Let me look at that,” Loki said, nodding his head towards Thor’s leg as he tied his horse up.

“It’s fine—”

“No it’s not, I can tell by the way you’re walking.”

Thor untied his pack from his saddle and dropped it to the ground so he could sit on it instead of in the snow.

“Loki,” Thor said, easing himself down. “Could you bring me the waterskin?” No answer. “Loki?”

The only answer was a surprised grunt. Thor struggled back up to his feet to see Loki rolling around in the snow grappling with someone. It looked like a man swaddled in furs as he and Loki were, although Thor couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a woman; he couldn’t get a good look at their face. Before Thor could figure out how to insert himself into the fight, Loki got his arm around the other person’s neck from behind and started squeezing.

“Thor! Give me the knife!”

Thor already had the knife in his hand and halfway through the arc to end the bandit’s life when the hood fell back and exposed the bandit’s face. Thor gasped and fell back, dropping the weapon to his side, unused.

“What are you doing!” Loki cried. “Kill him!”

“Heimdall,” Thor breathed.

Heimdall. His father’s second. Thor was sure of it. He’d absolutely idolized Heimdall as a child—his sense of honor, his utter unflappability, his unparalleled skill as a fighter. Heimdall had practically been Thor’s uncle; Thor would recognize the man anywhere. Heimdall’s golden gaze bored into him.

“And who are you?” Heimdall asked. Even on his knees with Loki’s arm around his neck, he spoke as calmly as if he were joining them for lunch.

“Heimdall, don’t you recognize me?” Thor stumbled forward and tugged at his own furs, pulling them away from his face. Loki tightened his hold on Heimdall’s neck and gripped him tighter, and Heimdall struggled for a moment before turning his eyes back to Thor. Thor saw the moment that recognition came over Heimdall’s face.

“Thor,” Heimdall said, warmth entering his voice. “Is that you?”

“Who is this?” Loki hissed. “What’s going on? This man attacked me.”

“Loki,” Thor said excitedly, “this is Heimdall, my father’s man. He won’t hurt us. Right? Heimdall?”

Loki squeezed Heimdall’s neck again and cut off his air.

“Let him go,” Thor ordered.

“But Thor—”

“Let him _go_.”

With a disgusted sigh, Loki let go of Heimdall’s neck and shoved him hard enough that he fell onto his hands and knees in the snow. Thor helped him to his feet, a bubbling excitement welling up in his chest. Finally, finally something was going right.

“Why did you attack us?” Thor said. “How did you survive up here for so long? Tell me everything.”

“I didn’t know who you were,” Heimdall said. “I thought you were bandits. We hardly get strangers around here who are anything but.”

“Around here? Where is here?”

That drew a fond exasperated laugh from Heimdall. “Still as many questions as ever. What are _you_ doing here?”

“Looking for Gungnir. Or Father. Or both. I...Heimdall. Is my father alive as well?”

Heimdall blew out a long sigh and put his hand on Thor’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Your father died ten years ago,” he said. “I was there.”

A tiny thread of something that Thor hadn’t realized had been tense finally broke. It was a relief and a crushing disappointment both, and he felt his face twist.

“I knew,” Thor choked out. “I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew.”

Heimdall gave him another squeeze and Thor covered his hand with his own.

“Why are you trusting him?” Loki said. He was over by the horses angrily going through his pack, taking out food and tossing it to the ground. “He says your father died, but he didn’t come home. He’s a deserter. I don’t trust deserters.”

“He’s Asgardian.”

Loki caught Thor’s eye, and his gaze was hard. “He was Asgardian when he decided to stay in Jotunheim. Doesn’t seem to have made a difference.”

“Who is your traveling companion?” Heimdall asked Thor, eyes flicking back and forth.

“That's Loki. He's my—” Thor's tongue tripped. _My friend. My lover._

“I'm his thrall,” Loki said sharply.

Loki began preparing food for them in murderous looking silence. Thor sat down with Heimdall and told him in brief detail of Raven clan's fall from grace after Odin’s defeat, of Hela's efforts to hold the clan together, of his own foolish quest. For his part, Heimdall told Thor of how he'd made a new home for himself here in Jotunheim and how he had been out on patrol because he was the only man in his tribe who knew what to do with a weapon.

“But tell me,” Thor said. “How did you come to be here at all? My father, the army… What happened? Why didn’t you come home?”

Heimdall sighed and looked past Thor’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing. Thor followed his gaze.

“You can say anything around Loki.”

Heimdall sighed again. “It was long ago…” he started uneasily. “Asgard and Jotunheim have been fighting since long before any of us were born. When it was clans against clans we were on relatively even footing. But ten years ago, some of the Jotun clans started banding together under a single leader. Thrym. Your father believed that if he marched off before the Jotuns could muster properly, and cut the head off the snake before it formed, that it would bring victory to Asgard.”

Thor clutched the raven carving around his neck. “Why didn’t he just gather Asgardians the way the Jotuns were gathering?”

Heimdall shrugged. “It is not for me to know the ways of chiefs. We marched north.” He stopped talking and stared off into the distance for a moment before shaking himself and continuing. “For weeks we marched. We thought we’d be fighting the Jotuns within days, but they always eluded us. Leading us on, in hindsight. Leading us here.” He gestured to the area around them.

“Right here?” Thor asked.

“Yes. This is the killing ground. It was misty that morning...we entered the woods...couldn’t see anything. The man in front of you, perhaps, but no farther than that. They began picking us off from the back. Darting in and out of the mist. Like vengeful spirits. The wailing...I’ll never forget the wailing. The sounds coming from the Jotun horde sounded like the horns of the dead. Our men were terrified. They began to panic. Some broke and tried to run. They died. Some stayed and fought. They died. Every clan of the north had come together here and they crushed us like we were nothing.”

“My father,” Thor whispered. “Did he fight with honor? Did he kill the man who killed him?”

“The last time I saw him he was surrounded by warriors of the Fenrir clan.”

“The last time you saw him?”

Heimdall looked at Thor sadly. “I ran. A lot of us did.”

“Coward,” Loki spat from across the clearing.

Thor felt sick to his stomach. It was too much to take in.

“Why didn’t you come home?” Thor asked.

“Raven clan never would have accepted us back,” Heimdall said. “You know it to be true.”

“So you stayed here.”

“Yes. Made lives for ourselves.”

Thor blinked back wetness from the corners of his eyes and swiped at his face with his sleeve.

“How do we find Fenrir clan?” Thor asked.

Heimdall nodded his chin towards Loki. “Ask him. His father was one of Thrym’s most loyal lieutenants. They fought here.”

"How do you know that?" Thor asked sharply.

"His name. His tattoos," Heimdall said.

Thor looked at Loki, who was shoving his sleeves back down where he'd pushed them up to prepare their meal. Loki wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Come with us,” Thor said, looking back to Heimdall. His heart felt far too heavy for his chest.

“I cannot,” Heimdall said. “I have a family here now. But I wish you the best of luck. It was good to see you again.”

*

After they finished eating, Heimdall left them with a firm forearm clasp and a hearty back slap. Thor and Loki packed up and continued making their way through the woods, walking their horses like they had before. Thor was choking on his silence. He kept looking at Loki, opening his mouth, then slamming it shut and turning away. Loki still wouldn’t look at him.

Finally he could bear it no longer.

“You knew,” Thor said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears. “You always knew, and you didn’t tell me. You let me wander around for _weeks_.”

Loki finally looked back at him, tight lipped, and said nothing.

“Your tribe was there and they butchered mine like dogs. All this time, and you knew.”

Thor was breathing harshly, unable to pull enough breath to keep his voice working properly. The betrayal twisted in his heart like a knife.

“Your father came to kill us,” Loki said. “What were we supposed to do? Yes, I knew about this place. To me and my people it’s a place of heroes.”

“How dare you,” Thor choked out. Something ugly reared up inside him and spat ugly words from his mouth. “ _How dare you_? You’re still my thrall!”

Loki rounded on him, snarling. “And you’d be dead without me!”

“You’d be the same without me!”

Thor thought he might die from the shame. That he’d thought Loki was his friend. That he’d let Loki use him...use his body...had offered even more to him… Thor’s face turned hot. Had Loki just been waiting all this time to bring Thor low like this? Lead him around on a wild goose chase, unman him, laugh at his pain?

With a growl, Thor dropped his horse’s reins and took a menacing step towards Loki. Loki didn’t fall back; he bared his teeth and stood taller.

“Has everything we’ve shared meant nothing to you?” Thor demanded. “Nothing at all?”

Loki raised his hand in warning. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what? Tell me. Don’t _what_?”

Thor was reaching for Loki’s arm when suddenly the air was filled with the ululating sound of war cries pouring from a dozen throats. Thor and Loki had only a second to look at each other, wide-eyed, before they were completely surrounded by fierce-looking warriors, faces painted blue and wolf pelts around their shoulders, a forest of spears pointed at their faces.

Thor took a step back, his knee buckling slightly, and Loki caught his arm and held him up.

One of the warriors wore a snarling wolf’s head as a hooded mantle, and from the way the other warriors looked at him Thor guessed he was the leader. Thor drew himself up to speak to him, but the warrior ignored him to speak to Loki instead. He spoke in the tongue of Jotunheim. Loki answered him in the same tongue and Thor could make out none of it but Loki’s name and Laufey’s name.

“What’s he saying?” Thor hissed under his breath. Loki ignored him.

The leader pointed at Thor and said something that sounded like a question. Loki looked at Thor for a moment, his face unreadable, then turned back to the leader and said something else. It made the leader scoff and smile, though it was without humor. The entire exchange was setting Thor’s teeth on edge.

The leader said something else and beckoned to his men. Thor found himself surrounded, blue hands everywhere, grabbing at his arms and twisting them behind his back, grabbing at his hair and yanking his head around; he tried to struggle but it was fruitless.

“Loki!” he cried. “Loki, what’s happening! Loki!” Desperately, he cast his eyes towards Loki. Were they taking him prisoner too?

Loki stepped calmly to the side and let Thor be manhandled. He clasped forearms with the Jotun leader. Thor felt the bile rise in his throat. Loki had sold him out. After all their time together. After everything he’d thought they were coming to mean to each other. He wanted to rip every Jotun warrior apart with his bare hands, and then grab Loki and shake him and shake him and…

The Jotun leader stepped right up to Thor’s face, and the one holding Thor’s hair yanked it back until Thor was forced to look him in the eye. The leader asked Loki something.

“Thor Odinson,” Loki said clearly.

“ _Torr Odinshon_ ,” the leader said, his thick accent marring Thor’s name. He laughed. He barked some kind of orders at his men and they began taking Thor’s and Loki’s horses. They tied Thor’s hands together in front of him and then tied him on a lead to the saddle of his own horse. 

Loki began to walk away with the leader, and Thor called after him.

“Wait! Loki, what’s happening?” He hated the pleading sound of his own voice.

Loki paused, then turned back to look at Thor. His face was hard, and had a curious blankness to it that Thor had never seen before. When he spoke, Thor’s heart broke.

“You’re my thrall.”

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me at thunderingraven.tumblr.com and twitter.com/thunderingraven


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